1,341 research outputs found
Slow-roll Inflation for Generalized Two-Field Lagrangians
We study the slow-roll regime of two field inflation, in which the two fields
are also coupled through their kinetic terms. Such Lagrangians are motivated by
particle physics and by scalar-tensor theories studied in the Einstein frame.
We compute the power spectra of adiabatic and isocurvature perturbations on
large scales to first order in the slow-roll parameters. We discuss the
relevance of the extra coupling terms for the amplitude and indexes of the
power spectra. Beyond the consistency condition which involves the amplitude of
gravitational waves, additional relations may be found in particular models
based on such Lagrangians: as an example, we find an additional general
consistency condition in implicit form for Brans-Dicke theory in the Einstein
frame.Comment: 17 pages, 1 figure, accepted for publication in Phys. Rev.
Evolution of Large Scale Curvature Fluctuations During the Perturbative Decay of the Inflaton
We study the evolution of cosmological fluctuations during and after
inflation driven by a scalar field coupled to a perfect fluid through afriction
term. During the slow-roll regime for the scalar field, the perfect fluid is
also frozen and isocurvature perturbations are generated. After the end of
inflation, during the decay of the inflaton, we find that a change in the
observationally relevant large scale curvature fluctuations is possible.Comment: 9 pages, 2 figures; v2: version published in PR
Phase-change chalcogenide glass metamaterial
Combining metamaterials with functional media brings a new dimension to their
performance. Here we demonstrate substantial resonance frequency tuning in a
photonic metamaterial hybridized with an electrically/optically switchable
chalcogenide glass. The transition between amorphous and crystalline forms
brings about a 10% shift in the near-infrared resonance wavelength of an
asymmetric split-ring array, providing transmission modulation functionality
with a contrast ratio of 4:1 in a device of sub-wavelength thickness.Comment: 3 pages, 3 figure
Photon recycling in Fabry-Perot micro-cavities based on SiN waveguides
We present a numerical analysis and preliminary experimental results on
one-dimensional Fabry-Perot micro-cavities in SiN waveguides. The
Fabry-Perot micro-cavities are formed by two distributed Bragg reflectors
separated by a straight portion of waveguide. The Bragg reflectors are composed
by a few air slits produced within the SiN waveguides. In order to
increase the quality factor of the micro-cavities, we have minimized, with a
multiparametric optimization tool, the insertion loss of the reflectors by
varying the length of their first periods (those facing the cavity). To explain
the simulation results the coupling of the fundamental waveguide mode with
radiative modes in the Fabry-Perot micro-cavities is needed. This effect is
described as a recycling of radiative modes in the waveguide. To support the
modelling, preliminary experimental results of micro-cavities in SiN
waveguides realized with Focused Ion Beam technique are reported.Comment: 5 pages, 5 figure
Ataxia with oculomotor apraxia type 2: a clinical, pathologic, and genetic study
BACKGROUND: Ataxia with oculomotor apraxia type 2 (AOA2) is characterized by
onset between age 10 and 22 years, cerebellar atrophy, peripheral neuropathy,
oculomotor apraxia (OMA), and elevated serum alpha-fetoprotein (AFP) levels.
Recessive mutations in SETX have been described in AOA2 patients.
OBJECTIVE: To describe the clinical features of AOA2 and to identify the SETX
mutations in 10 patients from four Italian families.
METHODS: The patients underwent clinical examination, routine laboratory tests,
nerve conduction studies, sural nerve biopsy, and brain MRI. All were screened
for SETX mutations.
RESULTS: All the patients had cerebellar features, including limb and truncal
ataxia, and slurred speech. OMA was observed in two patients, extrapyramidal
symptoms in two, and mental impairment in three. High serum AFP levels, motor and
sensory axonal neuropathy, and marked cerebellar atrophy on MRI were detected in
all the patients who underwent these examinations. Sural nerve biopsy revealed a
severe depletion of large myelinated fibers in one patient, and both large and
small myelinated fibers in another. Postmortem findings are also reported in one
of the patients. Four different homozygous SETX mutations were found (a
large-scale deletion, a missense change, a single-base deletion, and a
splice-site mutation).
CONCLUSIONS: The clinical phenotype of oculomotor apraxia type 2 is fairly
homogeneous, showing only subtle intrafamilial variability. OMA is an inconstant
finding. The identification of new mutations expands the array of SETX variants,
and the finding of a missense change outside the helicase domain suggests the
existence of at least one more functional region in the N-terminus of senataxin
Strong Correlations in a nutshell
We present the phase diagram of clusters made of two, three and four coupled
Anderson impurities. All three clusters share qualitatively similar phase
diagrams that include Kondo screened and unscreened regimes separated by almost
critical crossover regions reflecting the proximity to barely avoided critical
points. This suggests the emergence of universal paradigms that apply to
clusters of arbitrary size. We discuss how these crossover regions of the
impurity models might affect the approach to the Mott transition within a
cluster extension of dynamical mean field theory.Comment: 45 pages, 14 figures. To appear in Journal of Physics: Condensed
Matte
Effect of the Orbital Level Difference in Doped Spin-1 Chains
Doping of a two-orbital chain with mobile S=1/2 Fermions and strong Hund's
rule couplings stabilizing the S=1 spins strongly depends on the presence of a
level difference among these orbitals. By DMRG methods we find a finite spin
gap upon doping and dominant pairing correlations without level-difference,
whereas the presence of a level difference leads to dominant charge density
wave (CDW) correlations with gapless spin-excitations. The string correlation
function also shows qualitative differences between the two models.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure
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First-trimester choroid-plexus-to-lateral-ventricle disproportion and prediction of subsequent ventriculomegaly.
OBJECTIVE: Ventriculomegaly can be associated with long-term neurodevelopmental impairment. Prenatal diagnosis of ventriculomegaly is most commonly made at the routine second-trimester anomaly scan. The value of first-trimester ultrasound has expanded to early diagnosis and screening of fetal abnormalities. The objective of this study was to assess the predictive accuracy of first-trimester choroid-plexus-to-lateral-ventricle-or-head ratios for development of ventriculomegaly at a later gestational age. METHODS: This was a case-control study of fetuses with isolated ventriculomegaly diagnosed after 16 weeks' gestation and a control group of normal fetuses (without ventriculomegaly). The exclusion criteria included aneuploidy, genetic syndrome and/or other brain abnormality. Stored two-dimensional first-trimester ultrasound images were analyzed blindly offline and fetal biometry was performed in the axial view of the fetal head. The ratios of choroid plexus area (PA) to lateral ventricular area (VA), choroid plexus length (PL) to lateral ventricular length (VL), choroid plexus diameter (PD) to lateral ventricular diameter (VD) and PA to biparietal diameter (BPD) were measured at 11 + 0 to 13 + 6 weeks' gestation. Intra- and interobserver variability of measurement of these fetal head biometric parameters at 11 + 0 to 13 + 6 weeks' gestation were assessed in 20 normal fetuses using intraclass correlation coefficients with 95% CI. The accuracy of first-trimester biometric measurements for prediction of ventriculomegaly was assessed using the area under the receiver-operating-characteristics curves (AUC). RESULTS: The analysis included 683 singleton pregnancies, of which 102 fetuses were diagnosed with ventriculomegaly. Ventriculomegaly was mild in 86 (84.3%) cases and severe in the other 16 (15.7%). All first-trimester fetal choroid-plexus-to-lateral-ventricle/head ratios were significantly lower in cases with ventriculomegaly compared with controls (P < 0.001), with good inter- and intraobserver agreement (≥ 0.95) for the majority of the fetal head biometric parameters assessed. On adjusting for crown-rump length, optimism-adjusted AUC values obtained after cross-validation showed that both PL/VL ratio (AUC, 0.87 (95% CI, 0.73-0.98)) and PA/VA ratio (AUC, 0.90 (95% CI, 0.82-0.98)) had good predictive accuracy for severe ventriculomegaly. The PA/BPD ratio (AUC, 0.73 (95% CI, 0.54-0.90)) had modest predictive ability, which was significantly lower compared with that of the PA/VA ratio and PL/VL ratio (P = 0.003 and P = 0.001, respectively). The predictive accuracy of PD/VD ratio was low with an AUC of 0.65 (95% CI, 0.47-0.84). Optimism-adjusted AUC values obtained after cross-validation showed that PA/VA ratio offered the highest predictive accuracy for mild ventriculomegaly with an AUC of 0.84 (95% CI, 0.79-0.89), followed by PL/VL ratio (AUC, 0.82 (95% CI, 0.76-0.88)), PA/BPD ratio (AUC, 0.76 (95% CI, 0.69-0.82)) and PD/VD ratio (AUC, 0.75 (95% CI, 0.67-0.81)). Calibration plots showed that both PA/VA and PL/VL ratios had good calibration. CONCLUSION: First-trimester prediction of ventriculomegaly using ratios of fetal choroid plexus to lateral ventricle/head appears promising. Future prospective studies are needed to validate the predictive accuracy of these ultrasound markers as a screening tool for ventriculomegaly. © 2023 The Authors. Ultrasound in Obstetrics & Gynecology published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of International Society of Ultrasound in Obstetrics and Gynecology
Nano-topography Enhances Communication in Neural Cells Networks
Abstract Neural cells are the smallest building blocks of the central and peripheral nervous systems. Information in neural networks and cell-substrate interactions have been heretofore studied separately. Understanding whether surface nano-topography can direct nerve cells assembly into computational efficient networks may provide new tools and criteria for tissue engineering and regenerative medicine. In this work, we used information theory approaches and functional multi calcium imaging (fMCI) techniques to examine how information flows in neural networks cultured on surfaces with controlled topography. We found that substrate roughness S a affects networks topology. In the low nano-meter range, S a  = 0–30 nm, information increases with S a . Moreover, we found that energy density of a network of cells correlates to the topology of that network. This reinforces the view that information, energy and surface nano-topography are tightly inter-connected and should not be neglected when studying cell-cell interaction in neural tissue repair and regeneration
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